( ESNUG 489 Item 2 ) -------------------------------------------- [03/11/11]
Subject: 88% of MENT customers greatly fear a Synopsys-Cadence duopoly
THE SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST ACT: 88% of chip designers pray that "Mentor is left
alone to run as it has before". Why? Because they're terrified of what
will happen if Carl Icahn's candidates succeed in taking over MENT's Board
of Directors. What these 88% of EDA users know is the buyers for MENT's
major parts will be Synopsys and Cadence. It'll make SNPS/CDNS into a
dangerous duopoly replete with ugly price collusions, indifferent support,
fat, happy salesmen, and lazy R&D departments. That's how duopolies work.
And for EDA users this fear is deja vu all over again. Remember when it
was Mike Fister lusting for his cash-stapped Cadence to acquire Mentor back
in 2008? The users went berserk about monopoly concerns back then, too.
ESNUG 474: 81% of EDA users disapprove of a Cadence-Mentor merger
Of course, there are laws against such things forming, but do any of the
Washington bureaucrats in the SEC, FTC, DOJ (or whatever government office
that supposedly enforces US anti-trust laws) even know what EDA is????
In a CNBC interview on Tuesday, Carl Icahn said that Mentor Graphics
"should be acquired, or at the very least, be put up for sale." The
NY Times reports that Icahn owns 14.7% of the company and he plans
to nominate at least 3 new directors to the Mentor board next week.
In my opinion, the EDA industry and the EDA user community will
be better off overall if (CHOOSE ONE):
A. Mentor is acquired, presumably by Synopsys or Cadence.
: ## 4% - acquired by SNPS or CDNS
: # 2% - acquired by Magma
B. Mentor sells off or closes its less profitable product lines.
: ### 6%
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
: ############################################ 88%
Comments? What's your reasoning for your choice?
Of 251 users in this survey, 80 commented in some way on this question.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
It would be a huge mistake removing one of the EDA vendors. What
a way to drive up prices and stifle innovation. We don't need
less vendors, we need more!
- Howard Baumer of Mobius Semiconductors
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
We need competition. Otherwise we will not have any more new tools.
- Thierry Pfirsch of Alcatel-Lucent
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
So Cadence/Synopsys do not jack up the price of their tools. Mentor
gives users a 3rd choice in many EDA tools.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
Mentor is left alone to run as it has before. Having only two big EDA
vendors remaining is too few.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
The more competition there is, the better products become in general.
Less competition, less need for Synopsys and Cadence to innovate to
keep their customers.
- Darren Galpin of Infineon
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
As a customer I don't see an upside to having less competition in
the market.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
X - C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
I want to see Mentor pursue an independent technical vision from Cadence
and Synopsys which will ultimately push all 3 vendors towards continuous
improvement of their products - to the benefit of the user community.
- Ashfaq Choudhury of STmicroelectronics
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Competition is always a positive influence on innovation to the benefit
of EDA customers. It is clear that Icahn has one and only one interest
and that is a short-term maximization Mentor's stock price.
- Hal Barbour of CAST, Inc.
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Otherwise the monopolies for one of the other 2 EDA vendors are getting
even bigger with severe negative effects (cost increases, lack of
innovation) for end users. Only competition drives innovation.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
(C.) Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
If the Mentor tools were bought by Cadence they would just mess them up
like so many tools they have bought before. Synopsys could very well do
the same as they do not need most of the Mentor tools.
The more EDA vendors there are the more competition there is.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before. --- 1st choice
Competition is important. Mentor acquired by Synopsys or Cadence would
result in higher prices to end-users.
When Icahn gets involved, it generally does not make a company stronger
but it would make Icahn richer, at the expense of the folks using these
tools. Hopefully Mentor has a poison-pill strategy in-place.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
They have demonstrated agility in the marketplace and an ability to invent
excellent technologies that are needed. I have enjoyed using their
products and working with their FAEs over the years.
Cadence is an evil monster that just opportunistically gobbles up anything
that comes across their way in their quest for growth.
Cadence acquisitions have often not been a positive experience for
customers nor employees. For example, I was a happy Ambit customer until
Cadence bought them. It wasn't too long before we switched back to
Synopsys. Cadence jacked up the prices and stalled on feature development
at the same time. If CDNS were to buy Mentor then any good technology
they have will be killed. I happen to be a current Mentor customer and
don't want that to happen.
Synopsys at least would be pragmatic about what they killed and nurture
the good parts.
Even so, Mentor needs to stick around to give Synopsys and Cadence a
reason to try to compete.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
I'd like to see healthy competion between all the EDA vendors.
- Luan Chau of Lattice Semiconductors
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before. (Option C)
Within the industry there should be fair completion. As EDA user I feel
there should be competition, which brings in innovation and a motivation
to do well. Also, I simply want to avoid monopoly.
- Dudyala Sasidhar of LSI
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Mentor has the best in class tools in several areas and is driving the
entire EDA market in these areas. If Mentor did not exist in its
current form the other EDA companies would take the opportunity to ease
off on R&D. Chip design companies need the EDA industry to have more
big players, not less.
- Colm Odoherty of Analog Devices, Inc.
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
- Jerry English of Zebra Technologies Corp.
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
- Stephen Lai of Solomon Systech Ltd.
C. Mentor left alone. Competition is good for all.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
As a Tier 1 customer we get good support and good incorporation of our
needs into the Mentor roadmap.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
SNPS/CDNS/LAVA has not been able to come up with viable solutions in
chip verification space (except Star-RCXT).
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
- Chitlesh Goorah of ON Semiconductor
B. Mentor sells off or closes its less profitable product lines.
This is the right thing to do for any business that is sitting on less
profitable product lines. Unless there is focused investment to improve
the product and its margins, then yes, sell off or shut down the low
margin activities.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Three's company! ;-)
Seriously, we need Mentor to balance the potential "Tyranny of Two" or
with the way Cadence is going, the potential monopoly of Synopsys.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Good competition across the board. Like to see Mentor in the mix with
Cadence and Synopsys. The whole industry gains!
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
A. Mentor is acquired, presumably by Synopsys or Cadence.
It would be better for the user community if the valuable Mentor tools
(Calibre, Modelsim, etc.) would support or replace exiting solution due
to better quality, performance and/or ease of use.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before. X
Mentor has unique tools, which benefit all designers. Their tools work
great, VHDL or Veriilog. They also interface seamlessly with Matlab
and Simulink for DSP. Maybe Menor should aquire Magma (yes LAVA),
which will help them compete again Synopsys and Cadence?
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Although not a market share leader in all areas, they innovate enough
to spur competition.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
B. Mentor sells off or closes its less profitable product lines.
Mentor is too diverse now, too many diverse products from embedded SW, to
IC verification, to EM analysis. They need to focus on either low-cost
PCB tools (Pads) or IC tools (ModelSim and Calibre) and spin out the
other product lines.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
A. Mentor is acquired, presumably by Synopsys or Cadence.
Mentor is no longer a player, but they have some good lines. If they're
sold, the good stuff can be maintained and the bad can be let go.
- Ben Madden of LSI
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
More competition I think is better for the industry. It keeps everyone
on their toes. ;)
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
There is too much overlap with either Cadence or Synopsys to have a
successful marriage. They should merge with Magma which has hardly
any overlap.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Yes, Mentor has chosen an odd mix of niches. However, the niches that
it has chosen have growth opportunity for the company. There is
probably more opportunity value in Mentor as an independent company
than what SNPS or CDNS would pay.
- Jonah Probell of YAP IP
B. Mentor sells off or closes its less profitable product lines.
They need to get their focus back on what really gets them money.
They are too wide-spread right now in their reach.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
A. Mentor is acquired, presumably by Synopsys or Cadence.
Merge/acquire/be acquired by Magma. Fills holes for both companies,
would reinvigorate Mentor development teams. Probably some overlap
that would need to be addressed.
That said, it's also bad for the user community with more concentration
of EDA tool flows in fewer hands.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
B. Mentor sells off or closes its less profitable product lines.
In those product holes that it is trying to gain a foothold, there are
significant growing pains and issues. Some of those present a drain
to their bottom line. It would be best to identify those and cut them
unless real gains can be made. Otherwise the entire business suffers.
- Albert Hook of Vitesse Semiconductor
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
I believe Mentor is doing fine as it is operating now.
- Edwin Grigorian of NASA JPL
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Consolidation does not benefit users/customers.
- Tom Jones of Echelon Corp.
Mentor should be left alone. It is an engineering company that services
engineers well. I don't want to see another good company be made more
"efficient" i.e. attractive for investors at the customers' expense.
If Icahn plunders Mentor, will customers see improved products and
service AND reduced cost? I doubt it seriously.
- Matthew Comard of On Semiconductors
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Definitely NOT (A). Would Synopsys trash ICV in favor of Calibre? Nope.
Would Cadence bail on Assura or whatever newer crappy verification tool
they sell? I doubt it. I don't care about Mentor, but Calibre needs to
survive and flourish.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
- Jamey Potechin of Alcatel-Lucent
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
The corporate raiders and the NY business journalists took so many cheap
shots at Mentor. It's like watching Brock Lesnar beat up a little girl.
Not fair, not fun, just look away since I guess that's the way things
work on Wall Street.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Having real tool choices and competition are important to us.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
I think Mentor provides great EDA tools and support.
- Bryan Davenport of On Semiconductors
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
To have good EDA products requires competition. Mentor provides that.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
I would rather Mentor be left alone, although at the very worst Mentor
should spin-off, close, or end-of-life the product lines that really
don't contribute either directly or indirectly to the Mentor bottom line.
I do not see the EDA industry being helped if Synopsys acquires Mentor;
we rather loathe Synopsys and would hate to deal with them any more
than we have to.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
We need 3 or more EDA companies so we can leverage better pricing with
competition. I am hoping Magma will survive and be another fierce
competitor to these 3.
- Vijay Chaugule of Aquantia Corp
B. Mentor sells off or closes its less profitable product lines.
Competition is good, yet Mentor's non-competitive tools should be
abandoned.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Competition breeds innovation... and cheaper tools when you have products
from multiple vendors in-house.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Leave the bigger guy's hands off of the better-run company!
Some of the floundering products (Certe?) may die at the hands of unhappy
users. Other products like Olympus may not have the market share yet, but
appear to be better for my use (not requiring the physical synthesis
iterations which Synopsys DC requires).
Keep some competition for the big guys intact.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
I'd like to add a fourth option -- D. Mentor and Magma merge. New company
to be called Magtor (sounds like a character from Transformers movie). If
this option is not there, then I'll choose: "B. Mentor should sell off its
less profitable businesses and put all focus on money making businesses.
Also, I'd like to add that Mentor should continue to push the envelope
towards System Level tools.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
I feel competition is good and breeds innovation.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Definitely not A. Again, looking at it from a DFT engineer's perspective,
I don't think Cadence or Synopsys have given DFT as much attention as
Mentor has. I want them to maintain their R&D in test, and I also want
competition in the marketplace.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Variety and competition are good! I'm a big fan of certain Mentor
products, e.g. Modelsim, and also appreciative of their activity in
the DFT/BIST area.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Would like to see Mentor increase market share a bit, which may be
reflective of their management chain; not really sure. I don't like
having so much market domination by only two EDA vendors.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
The EDA community would be a disaster if it was run by Synopsys and
Cadence. Both need companies competition to keep them in touch with
customers. Mentor keeps Synopsys/Cadence in check.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
Mentor should be left alone as it is. They are leader in DFT and PV.
I think while they are keeping up their leading products, they should
also spend R&D to improve their also-run products such as P&R and
synthesis. They have potential to take market share from Synopsys
and Cadence.
- Wern Koe of SandForce, Inc.
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before. XXXX
Their collaboration with Cadence on UVM is good for the industry.
Also, it's better to have a few good strong competitors rather than
just two.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Cadence would destroy the good products like they did with many of their
acquisitions. It would be better to close the doors than go this route,
at least then the end would be quick, rather than watching a good tool
set wither to nothing over time. Not saying Cadence wouldn't try to get
them, they fill huge holes in their tool set inventory, but the result
would be long lasting and devastating to the customers.
Synopsys would never get past the anti-trust issues: Hercules and Calibre,
TetraMax/DFTMax and Fastscan/Testkompress, ICC and Olympus, Virage BIST
and Logic Vision Tessent. Having to divest them to merge Why bother?
I guess all companies have less profitable lines, but I'm struggling to
pick them out for MENT. The PCB design software is good, Calibre is the
gold standard, test tools (BIST, ATPG, etc) are best-in-class. Perhaps
the simulator, FPGA synthesis? They fill the low cost hole with those
two, so I'd hate to see those options go away.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Having one very powerful EDA company gives too much power to that company.
- Rick Tomihiro of Xilinx
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Carl Icahn is a numbers geek. He and his associates have successfully
identified and purchased decent businesses that were poorly run and/or
undervalued. He first started by getting the companies to repurchase
his stock for a premium (GREENMAIL). Now he attempts to look for an
acquirer or for the market price to rise.
He has a POOR TRACK RECORD operating companies with the biggest disaster
being TWA which he ran into the ground after extracting as much $$$ as he
could for himself. He has NO TRACK RECORD running a technology company
and I have no confidence in his ability to do so. His recent track
record of investing in Motorola is not looking good although since he
averaged down he may be able to break even.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before. [X]
Selling to Cadence just buries existing users. Nobody should suffer
under Synopsys.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Having just 2 major players is not a good idea. Companies will be forced
to choose one based on cost model offerings, having to go with a fixed
menu instead of a-la-carte. This results in getting a mix of good and bad
tools that vendor wants to push into the design community. While their
good tools help designers, their bad tools sufficiently counterbalance
the good thus killing productivity.
- Madhusudan Nandagudi of NXP Semiconductors
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
- Wencheng Li of Vitesse Semiconductors
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Mentor focuses on substance, not hype. Why should someone who owns 15%
of the company be allowed to overthrow that? Let Icahn wait until he
owns more than 50% of the shares. Right now he's just the tail trying
to wag the dog. The only way he can get away with it is if his bluff
and bluster intimidate the current Mentor board.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
D. MENTOR AND MAGMA MERGE.
Man, that's what I'm saying since around 2001/2002! MERGE MAGMA AND
MENTOR! Do it NOW, before it is too late! Don't let the Big 2 sharks
wolf down this last island of free thought!
First it's Mentor, then Magma will be NEXT, and then, we're left at
the Big 2's mercy! Magma AND Mentor could FINALLY form the big THIRD
force if they just put their heads together!!! It would be GREAT to
combine Magma's fighting spirit AND Mentor's ease-of-use spirit AND
add up both their sizes! That'll REVOLUTIONIZE the EDA market and
finally give the designers the working, easy to use, well supported
and seamlessly complete set of tools they had been longing for since
the 70s!!!
Hey, just think of Talus resynthesis capabilities combined with a
built-in Sierra router that is DFM and DFY aware and finally knows all
the snares and traps of the latest technologies! Or a combination of
Quartz extraction and Mentor Calibre verification! Or a BIG third
EDA vendor that finally is a real partner of TSMC, driving new tech
nodes, so it's not only the other 2 that cherry-pick all the rules
and leave the other EDA users to choke on new technologies!
We NEED a new Magma-Mentor EDA company, and we need it NOW! Just do it!
- Christof Bergmann of Texas Instruments
B. Mentor sells off or closes its less profitable product lines or C.
Mentor is left alone to run as it has before. Definitely not A. Quality
will suffer with less competition.
- Greg Tumbush of Tumbush Enterprises
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
I dont wan't Synopsys or Cadence to take over Mentor because they will
kill it. I would rather choose a third person who has vision and can push
Mentor to its limits of potential and make it successful.
- Chandra Gandu of Tessolve, Ltd.
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
If Mentor gets eaten by Cadence, we're doomed. We need competition,
otherwise Cadence will give us total crap for a $mills/year.
- Brett Bymaster of Bymaster Engineering Services
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
- SeungHo Choi of Dongbu
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
I don't like selling off to SNPS nor CDNS as it reduces the competition
in the EDA field and I think that's not good for the users. MENT seems
to be doing a reasonable job as is.
- Scott Evans of Sonics, Inc.
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Every company has a right to choose the product of their choice, and
vote with their feet when it's not a good value in the market.
Having individuals poison Mentor's market, is just in bad taste... as
is this exceptionally poor taste survey.
- John Bass of DMS Design
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Don't want only left two big companies, then it is hard for user to
choose other tools.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Less profitable does not mean not profitable. If they sell it off, it
may mean less competition in the marketplace.
- Winston Worrell of Microsoft
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
EDA vendor need more competitors.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
A. Mentor is acquired, presumably by Synopsys or Cadence.
Mentor should merge with Magma (somewhat complimentary product line).
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
I believe Mentor should start releasing its code to open-source.
OpenOffice is slowly bringing MS Products into a reasonable price range.
- Tony Laundrie of SGI
B. Mentor sells off or closes its less profitable product lines.
All companies should focus to areas where they can really add value. By
that way they can win market share. Coming to P&R/implementation area
was mistake from Mentor. Also trying to expand out from EDA scope is not
really paying off.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C, leave them alone. Mentor is run very good. If Synopsys acquires
Mentor competition is even less than before. If Cadence... well,
don't! If it is sold to investors it's only money, customer interests
will not be taken into consideration any more.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
I don't think Cadence or Synopsys really do a better job for customers.
Especially Cadence is worst of all three here.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
They are leaders in what they do. In DFT/ATPG and Calibre physical
verification, and also in board design tools. Their latest entry into
P&R tools is not a winner yet -- later they must create something from
scratch and not purchase another company.
- Hatem Yazbek of Marvell
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Who acquires Mentor will be larger than Synopsys or Cadence today. I
don't like there to be only one giant, which will make products and
service even worse.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
It enables competition for other big EDA monsters Synopsys and Cadence.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
We have had too much consolidation as it is in EDA, with the large
companies becoming complacent, or even antagonistic to the needs of
their users. We need some real competition in the market to get the
players to finally make an effort in the game!
- Charlie Edmondson of Edmondson Engineering
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
- Chandramohan Kaliyur of Mindtree
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
I think having only 2 players in this space will be bad for the users.
- Tom Tessier of T2design, Inc.
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
I like the corporate culture of Mentor better than Synopsys or Cadence.
I feel that they listen better, and they are in closer contact with the
research community. I also find them to be humbler, even when they
are producing good tools.
Carl Icahn has no interest in doing good by EDA users. He just wants to
line his own pockets. The track record of his past takeovers isn't good.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
Killing a market leader kills freedom of product choice and inventions
and supports monopoly.
- Sivasankar Nagarajan of Applied Materials, Inc.
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
I don't see any substantial reason for Mentor to sell off or get acquired.
Of course, something has to be done about bad performing units, but that
should be Mentor management's call -- not any outsiders !
And definitely not to Cadence who has shown a very poor performance in
terms of tool enhancements (as per tools I use). I have very bad
experiences with Cadence's Incisive Unified Simulator (NCSIM) and I
feel it's a very inferior tool compared to Questa.
Synopsys is fine, since they are good at EDA, but wiping out competition
will only make them complacent -- something not good for any industry.
- Pushkar Naik of AppliedMicro, Inc.
C. Mentor is left alone to run as it has before.
It's a healthy tree. So leave it alone.
- Kiran Gurunath of Kawasaki Microelectronics, Inc.
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